Tuesday, March 21, 2017

As my cousin Kelly says, you can only speak from your own experience, and here is mine. I will continue to post my experience every International Woman's Day until we have gotten closer to gender equality. I write this for our sons and daughters. Yes, we can have chivalry AND equality AND sometimes boys can go first.

Here is my connection with International Women’s day: While attending an event with the Dalai Lama, I met a man who was working at the Refugee Woman’s Alliance booth, a little ironic in retrospect. He offered me a job doing web development maintenance on their website. Apparently none of the women there wanted to do it, it was really just text editing. One of the jobs he had me do was update the International Woman’s Day page. I happily did the freelance work.

As you celebrate women today and your illusion of inequality, think how much you are contributing to it and how much men don’t say a think as you call them sexist and they support your causes. When have you ever supported a man’s cause? Well it’s a man’s world you say, but where does a man go when he needs support? He gets looked down upon if he goes to his friends. If you like watching guys throw a ball around, you have something to watch a couple nights a week. If you don’t what are you left with? Name one organization for men. Try to name just one. Do you realize the inequality yet?

All of the behaviors you stereotype men for are either from the top 1% or from aggressive assholes. They aren’t from the workhorse of the American Economy. I don’t care if elite white males run the government. if you want to protest the government, don’t villainize working class white males, that’s not fair. When will woman stop racial profiling men? And when will they stop yelling inequality

when they are perpetrating the inequality on men?

And oh yes, please let’s hear about the glass ceiling for the billionth time. The justification for every sexist, gender profiling stereotype women perpetrate on society. There are getting to be just as many female executives in companies these days as men. Why does it still happen? That is the company’s business. If you don’t like the company, don’t work for them or don’t do business with them. Half there business goes away, they probably have to close their doors. That’s how capitalism works. What does a solution to this look like to you?

That day I attended the Dalai Lama event, he said “We don’t come from the sky, we all come from our mothers, we all come from women”. When you think about compassion, think about your mother’s compassion for you. When you think about gender equality, stop thinking about what feminism or some other source tells you about men, look around you. Look at the men who have been of service and have gone largely unnoticed.

Do those men a favor, stop shoving labels at them. Maybe someday men will be allowed to have a day in their name and won’t have been too conditioned by the phrase “men don’t like to show their feelings” to enjoy themselves. The boys of our generation have a chance to not be conditioned by a society that blames them for everything. If you can look them in they eyes and say to yourself, “I won’t let the world cheat you like your father was cheated”, we’ve got a good start.

I have been investigating the idea of a wooden yurt village lately. I have been thinking about it for a while, based on William Coperthwaite's similar community in Vermont called Dickenson's Reach. I think it would be perfectly suited for the Pacific Northwest. Here is a link to the slideshow.